Should we rely on company-provided medical insurance or buy personal health insurance plan? Now, read the all explained content to select better health insurance for you?
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You might have landed in the dream job of your life, where you must be drawing handsome salary along with various other perquisites and benefits which generally include group insurance cover among many others.
Most of the employees know that they are being covered by the company under a group insurance plan but they never try to read its terms and conditions. Since group insurance is a contract between the employer and the insurance company, the employer decides various components of the contract, for example, the sum assured to be provided, the diseases to be covered, the number of family members to be covered, etc. Hence it is in the best interest of an individual to at least have a look at the insurance cover being provided by the company and should consider buying a separate health insurance cover for himself and his family.
So below are the various reasons why an employee should go for a distinct personal health insurance cover:
FAMILY SECURITY
Are you among those individuals who believe that you are the bread earners and hence only you require health insurance cover while your families don’t? Then you are wrong. All your savings can vanish if anything happens to any family member.
The companies provide coverage to their employees and their family members based on their designation/post/levels. The employees at a low level will get low coverage. Also, some companies cover only their employees without giving any benefit to their family members. This is mostly applied in case of small and medium enterprise companies. So, it becomes imperative for an individual to buy a cover for its family too. We all are aware of the rising medical expenses which necessitate the need for buying health insurance.
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INSUFFICIENT COVERAGE
The cover provided by the employer may not be sufficient enough to cover medical expenses these days which arises the need of buying an extra health insurance plan. If you have an extended family then you must buy an additional health plan as soon as possible.
CONTINUITY ISSUE
Since the insurance cover, you are getting from your employer is the result of the employer-employee relationship. So whenever this relationship will get over, you will lose the health cover. Also at retirement, one has to leave the organization, so it will be quite difficult for an individual to get a new health cover at 60 years of age because of the age-related ailments/lifestyle-related ailments. Hence one should contemplate buying a separate health cover at an early age.
NO CUSTOMIZATION
There is no scope of customization in the insurance cover provided by the employer. Since all the conditions of the contract are negotiated by the organization itself. This does not leave any room for an employee to decide on anything. For example, you can include your newborn baby in the current policy on policy renewals only. While on the other hand, if you have a separate personal health insurance policy then you are just required to inform the insurer for the inclusion of a new family member. You can include newborn baby in the current personal health insurance plan after the completion of 90 days of age.
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EXTRA TAX DEDUCTION
You must be aware of the fact that the premium paid towards health insurance policy qualifies for tax deduction under section 80D of the Income-tax act 1961. So, if you buy an additional health insurance policy and pay a premium towards it then you can claim deduction up to Rs 25000 if you are below 60 years of age or upto Rs 50000 if you are above 60 years which translates into tax savings of upto 7800 and 15600 respectively.
The below mentioned table explains the tax benefits available to the individuals on the premium paid towards the health insurance premium:
|
Scenario |
Premium paid |
Deduction under section 80D |
|
|
Self, family, children |
Parents |
||
|
Individual and parents below 60 years of age |
25,000 |
25,000 |
50,000 |
|
Individual and family below 60 years but parents above 60 years of age |
25,000 |
50,000 |
75,000 |
|
Both individual, family and parents above 60 years of age |
50,000 |
50,000 |
1,00,000 |
SPECIAL DISEASE PLAN
Not all diseases are covered under the group insurance offered by the organization. Hence if a person wants to cover critical illnesses or any particular disease. Then he has to buy a separate health insurance plan. For example, a person can buy a cardiac plan or a cancer plan, based on his family history and present health condition.
Top-up plan
You can also buy top up plan to increase your coverage. For example, your company provides you and your family an insurance cover of up to 5 lacs but you want to increase your health coverage by another 5 lacs then to make it happen you can buy a top-up plan of 5 lacs. The only condition is that the top-up plan will indemnify you only when the initial 5 lacs cover will get exhausted. Whether you are getting the first 5 lacs from any insurance company or from your own pocket, it does not matter to the provider of the top-up plan.
Hence an individual can curtail the risk by buying a separate health cover policy.
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